Arts & Culture
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17 books to soak up this summer
Harvard Library staff recommendations cover romance, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, memoir, music, politics, history
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What to make? Let the wheels decide.
‘Randomizer’ gets creative gears spinning in ceramic studio
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Writing to the beat of your inner Miles Davis
Jesse McCarthy sees Black authors during Cold War philosophically opting for none of the above, and improvising their own way
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A modern approach to teaching classics
Martin Puchner is using chatbots to bring to life Socrates, Shakespeare, and Thoreau
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Stumbling through fog, disillusionment of 1970s
Francine Prose’s memoir trails fleeing 26-year-old novelist to S.F., her attraction to deeply troubled, fading counterculture hero
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Finding new art in unexpected places
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies loaning pieces from collection to areas around campus to widen exposure, spark reconsideration
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In the mind’s ear
On a commission from the Harvard Art Museums, Mexican artist Carlos Amorales created “Triangle Constellation” to hang above the Calderwood Courtyard.
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Unsettled by the bomb
A historian’s new book outlines the little-known role of black Americans in international campaigns to ban nuclear weapons.
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Path to understanding
During a panel discussion at Radcliffe, musicians in the diverse Silk Road Ensemble explained how they combine instruments, mesh traditions to make new music.
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Voices, united
“Harvard Voices,” sponsored by the Harvard University Committee on the Arts, united a cross-section of artistic influences and University arts resources.
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Celebrating Widener
Two lectures launched a yearlong celebration of Widener Library, which turns 100 this June.
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The sacred middle
Harvey Cox, the Hollis Research Professor of Divinity Emeritus at the Divinity School, talks about his new book, “How to Read the Bible.”
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What they overcame
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson Jr. took part in a question-and-answer session with Harvard President Drew Faust as part of the William Belden Noble Lectures.
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The importance of being earnest
A Harvard senior creates a student-run show for his senior project. The work grew out of his special concentration in theater arts and performance. “OSCAR at The Crown and the love that dare not speak its name” runs April 15 and 16 at 8 p.m. and April 17 at 10:30 p.m.
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Thinking backward
Professor Carlo Ginzburg of UCLA will deliver Harvard’s Tanner Lectures starting April 15.
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Tangled roots
The story of “Drapetomania: Grupo Antillano and the Art of Afro-Cuba” is one of discovery and rediscovery. For the 30 artists represented, it illustrates the uncovering of an artistic heritage, and a lineage that was long denied. As part of “Drapetomania,” the Cooper Gallery is also presenting a Cuban film series, with screenings on Thursdays at noon.
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Poetic wandering
This walking tour pairs classic Harvard landmarks with a sampling of the poets connected to the University — all in honor of National Poetry Month.
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‘The Choice’ premiere
Written approximately 20 years after Elie Wiesel was freed from imprisonment in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps, “The Choice” is having a staged reading at Sanders Theatre on Sunday. It marks a premiere for the recently rediscovered work.
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‘Confronting Violence’ through arts and activism
“Confronting Violence,” an April 9-10 conference at the Radcliffe Institute, will explore how activism and cultural change can affect public policy and reduce violence. It includes an exhibit, “Confronting Violence: Critical Approaches to American Comics and Video Games,” which can be viewed through April 17.
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Walking in Cuba
A historian’s photographs expose the sedimentary layers of Cuba, a country in flux.
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The unheard melodies of speech
During a talk at the Graduate School of Design, composer Steve Reich’s haunting “WTC 9/11” demonstrated the unique ability of sound to recall not only the defining moment of loss, but the trauma that continually threatens to erase it from memory.
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They build, but modestly
Speaking at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, two French architects advocate building and rebuilding based on modesty, generosity, and economy, with an eye to comfort and beauty.
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Bringing sanity to clarity
Professor Steven Pinker talks about his latest book, “The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century.”
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A close glimpse of James Baldwin
Houghton Library recently acquired its 3,000th American item, the typescript of an unproduced James Baldwin play — a rich tangle of the author’s obsessions in need of a scholar’s clarifying touch.
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The introspective Laurie Anderson
Performance artist Laurie Anderson delved into her inspirations and motivations as she gave the Music Department’s Louis C. Elson Lecture.
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Up for debate
During two days of programming at the Harvard Art Museums, scholars, students, and the public explored the significance and innovative conservation of Mark Rothko’s Harvard murals. The events highlighted the murals’ return to public discourse and their new role as potential models for the treatment of aged and damaged art.
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Seeing, feeling, being
A symposium will investigate what makes us human, and go beyond philosophy to do it.
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Breaking musical barriers
In a visit to Harvard, Marin Alsop discussed some of the challenges she has faced as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
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A fountain of music
As part of a course on music composition, Harvard students created original works inspired by objects in the Harvard Art Museums collections. Those compositions were recently brought to life by cellist Neil Heyde of London’s Royal Academy of Music at a concert held in the Calderwood Courtyard.
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Soccer’s versatile beauty
Harvard course uses the game of soccer to explore the complexity of the humanities.
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Plotting her return
Author ZZ Packer is spending her Radcliffe year working on her newest effort, a novel titled “The Thousands” that tracks the lives of several families following the Civil War through the American Indian campaigns in the Southwest.
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Making print modern
In an age of bits and bytes and pixels and text on screens, Harvard Design Magazine — relaunched in a new format last year ― fervently embraces the thingness of print, the quotidian actuality of paper and ink.
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Revealed in verse
Henri Cole is working on a new collection of poems while a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
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The wrong way forward
In May, Matt Aucoin’s “Crossing” will premiere with the American Repertory Theater as part of the theater’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.
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A literary colossus
The new Murty Classical Library of India from Harvard University Press, aiming for 500 volumes over the next century, will reveal to the world a “colossal Indian past” of multilanguage literary history from as far back as two millennia.
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The spectacle of Ghungroo
The Harvard South Asian Association’s annual arts showcase, called Ghungroo, is a complex coordinated production that draws hundreds of student performers and delighted classmates in the audience.